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Do You Know The Orchid Man?
Exclusive Orchid Hunter/ Horticulturalist To The Rich & Powerful
By Andrew Stern, Editor-in-Chief

His ways are mysterious, yet the results of his creations are always beautiful. He’s an artisan from a time when mastery in a given field was highly valued and from a place where devotion to a single art was considered a virtue. To call Orchid Man eccentric, while perhaps somewhat accurate, does not truly capture the essence of his individuality.

Where in this world can you find an artist/scientist devoted to a single species of flower such as the orchid? Only in Aventura.

Orchid Man has created orchid designs for many of the most expensive homes in Aventura, Golden Beach, Bal Harbour and even Indian Creek. He can get you individual orchids of almost any color and variety for your home, but his true specialty is designing orchid settings in the outdoors that can transform the trees in your backyard into a beautiful tropical garden resembling a South Florida version of James Hilton’s Shangri La.

So, Who Is The Orchid Man?
Orchid Man’s alter ego is Jeremy Kahn. Like all superheroes, when not on the job, Kahn keeps a low profile and strives to be a mundane, somewhat bumbling, likable sort of guy. He drives a non-descript car or sometimes a white van. He doesn’t dress flashy and easily blends into a crowd.

You may have seen him at the Bagel Cove, the mall or even a small Columbian coffee shop on the beach and never knew how close you were to the great artist. Initial impressions can sometimes be very deceiving.

On the surface, Kahn appears as a typical tall, handsome, dark-haired man in his mid- 30s. He’s usually dressed in jeans and a polo shirt or khakis and a button-down shirt. His customers are some of the very elite of South Florida, yet he makes no attempt to adapt to their affectations Kahn always had a knack for fixing mechanical devices. He had a natural talent for understanding water systems and creating unique aquatic environments. As a teenager, he would hang out at tropical fish stores and learn about aquariums. Soon Kahn started experimenting with his own aquariums and was quickly improving on the things he had learned. Before he knew it, Kahn was building mega-aquariums costing thousands of dollars, using technologies and components
from Europe that nobody in the area could come close to replicating. Even today, for special clients, Kahn will design and build a custom-made, salt-water aquarium for their homes or offices.

Kahn actually inherited his creativity from his father Evan, who was a superstar hair stylist in the ‘70s. He owned many different successful salons in Miami Beach. Jeremy simply chose to channel his creativity into different areas. Only in the last few years has Jeremy really found his true artistic calling: orchids.

What Does He Do?
Orchid Man’s medium is flowers. Not just any flower, but the queen of all flowers -- the orchid. According to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in Great Britain, the orchid was brought to Western Europe first as
packing material in a shipment from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1818. One of the stems was nursed and caused to flower and the species was named Cattleya labiata.

This was the beginning of a 19th century orchid craze that created the need for additional orchid supply. Specialized explorers, known as Orchid Hunters, were sent out to the Americas and Africa in search of new species
to send back to Europe. Unfortunately, many orchids would die in transit. This only added to the scarcity and further spurred demand. A single new species could fetch as much as £1,500 back then; a veritable fortune in
today’s currency.

Kahn is the modern-day equivalent of the 19th century Orchid Hunter. He knows where all the orchids are grown in the modern world and locates farms locally in Homestead, Orange and throughout Florida. He has
located sources as distant and exotic as Costa Rica, Indonesia and South America.

Much like the Orchid Hunters of old, the Orchid Man of Aventura scours the various farms to find the healthiest and most beautiful specimens to bring to his exclusive customers back home.

Satisfied customer Janice Lipton raves about Orchid Man and her new orchid-infused garden. “How thankful I am for Jeremy who has turned my garden into an orchid oasis,” Lipton says.

Orchid Man doesn’t merely bring you the best possible orchids available, arrange them in beautiful and unique patterns and help you maintain them, but he does this at rockbottom prices. Were you to buy an orchid from a florist, or even on the internet, you may pay $80 or more for some species. Orchid Man is able to get the same flower often for half the price and much fresher because he has cherry-picked it that morning directly from the grower.

According to Lonnie Kantor, another of Orchid Man’s happy customers, “Jeremy’s professional, unique, personalized one-of-akind orchid “jungle” designs delight the spirit, bring joy to the soul and make us really see the magic of God’s creations.”

How Does He Do It?
Orchid Man is able to display orchids in ways no other horticulturist has dreamed. He can exploit the symbiotic relationship between certain orchid plants and trees and is able to place the orchids in such a way that they enhance the beauty of the host tree. Orchid Man has invented a proprietary technology employing a secret wiring and watering methodology that allows the orchids to thrive indefinitely.

He can view a given landscape, survey the area and immediately envision an orchid-filled paradise. By using his proprietary techniques, he takes orchids that may ordinarily last a week or two and keep them watered and healthy (using automatic misting systems) so that a yard or setting can remain beautiful for as long as two months.

For those wishing to procure Orchid Man’s services, it may be a challenge. Kahn regularly has a backlog of business and is very choosy about whom he takes on as a new customer. But once you get on Orchid Man’s secret list, you are set, orchid-wise, for life. His permanent customers get the first pick of all the very best orchids and their gardens can potentially put their neighbors’ yards to shame.

If you think your home and yard are up to the challenge, give Orchid Man a call and see if you can make the cut. It’s sure to be a unique artistic experience.

The Orchid Man can be reached at 786-319-2029